Some interesting landscape we passed by on the way back to the hotel.
The famous Pike Farmer's Market in Seattle.
There's a good view of Mt. Rainier--taken from my camera (and Kyle said his was better--see later picture of Rainier further down the entry).
Again, another picture of Rainier from my camera.
We decided to sit inside the Needle because out on the ledge was oh so cold and windy!
Get a load of the Christmas decor inside the Needle.
We got a nice little old lady to take our picture together.
This was before the roads got really snowy and messy. We couldn't get any pictures of the way over to Seattle because it was dark.
We saw a pretty lake/body of water on the way home and the clouds are pretty ominous looking.
This was the type of weather we got on the way back home.
Our hotel was just located about 0.3 miles from the Space Needle.
Just before we went up in the Space Needle.
View from the Space Needle. Mt. Rainier is located just behind those tall buildings, although you can't really see it--we needed a professional camera in order to really get a good quality view of Rainier.
The very first Starbucks located in the Pike Market. The coffee tastes the same though.
Seattle nightscape.So, yesterday we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do. Kyle felt like doing something or going somewhere. Finally, we decided to go traveling. We decided we'd either go to Portland or Seattle and since we thought of the Space Needle, we decided to go to Seattle. I had previously planned to go with Prithvi to the gym dance class at 4:30 and I didn't want to just cancel on her at the last minute, so we didn't leave for Seattle until about 6:40pm--and it takes about 7.5 hours to get there!! You do the math. We pulled into the hotel about 1:30am (pacific time). On our way there, we saw so much snow in the mountains in Oregon and in Washington. It was beautiful, except we couldn't see much but what we did see was pretty amazing. Neither of us are used to seeing this much snow (or any snow at all) in November! It got pretty dangerous though while we were in our last few legs of our travel. There was dense fog and it was tough to see the road in front of us! I was a little stressed while Kyle was driving because at night, it's even scarier--anything can jump out of the woods into the road! Plus, it always feels like we're going faster than we really are. We were both worn out by the time we finally reached the hotel and we checked in and pretty much went straight to bed at about 2am.
We woke up this morning about 8am (pt) and ate our free breakfast and then got ready for the day. We walked to the Space Needle, which was only about 1/3 of a mile away from where we were staying. It's really not as pretty as you would think. It was opened at the World's Fair in 1962 and it was originally painted in (get these color names): Astronaut white, Orbital olive, Galaxy gold, and Reentry red. However, a member of royalty (I forgot his name) said he didn't like the colors because it reminded him of a bridge he'd seen. So, the colors were just changed to gold and white. The elevator we rode up to the top in reminded me of that golden capsule elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the old school one with Gene Wilder--I LOVE THAT MOVIE)! The elevator shot up at a whopping 10 mph and then we were at the top of the world! Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera cords to upload the pictures with so I'll add them when I get a chance once we get home, so stay tuned. Anyway, we got up to the top and we could see Mt. Rainier!!! I had always read in school about this infamous mountain but now I could actually see it! I was excited and it was just covered in all this snow! It looked so majestic. Kyle overheard a lady say that you can only see this mountain 1/3 of the year and so it was so nice to be able to see it this time. It was so windy and cold at the top of the Needle and it was kinda hard for me to be out there--it kinda made me dizzy to be out there at the very top while it was so windy. Whenever I'm that high up in the air, I always imagine that the wind is going to get so strong that it'll make me fall over or drop something from the top---even just writing about this makes me almost dizzy! There's a rotating restaurant in the Needle and I thought about possibly going there to eat, but it's probably just really overpriced food and who knows if it's even good! Oh well. We spent probably about 30 minutes up there and then decided to go back down to earth.
We went back to the hotel and we got into the car because one of Kyle's college buddies who graduated a couple of years ago is now working at Microsoft. We wanted to go visit him for a little bit. We toured the campus of Microsoft and went into the visitor center and the company store. After that, we ate lunch in one of the many cafeterias. The food was really good! I had a nice, big salad and a cup of fruit salad. The fruit was so fresh tasting and that's pretty rare for some cafeterias. Usually the grapes are really mushy and the pineapple is kinda dried up but noooo, not this fruit salad! We ate and visited awhile and then finally Herman (Kyle's friend) said he had to get back to work but not without a little more of a tour. We went driving around the campus and lo and behold! you know those little blue and green people that MSN messenger uses? There were 2 huge cardboard cut-outs of them displayed on the corner of one of the streets. Herman took a picture of Kyle and me posing with the two figures. After the driving tour, we dropped Herman back at his building and we headed back to the hotel.
We got out of the car and walked to the Pike Place Farmer's Market. It was so cool! One big farmer's market selling so many different things but not limited to: fresh veggies, fruit, fish, crab legs, crafts, tshirts, different types of ethnic foods (you could smell all sorts of spices floating around), coffee, and your token junk that you'd only buy in the heat of the moment and then end up throwing it away a year later or less. Because it's Seattle, we were there at the market for about 30 minutes and it started to drizzle/rain. We went into the original Starbuck's and ordered a drink. Then after the coffee, I convinced Kyle that we should buy a triangle of baklava and share it. It was heavenly! I loved every nibble I took! *sigh* I'm gonna have to try and make it some day. I think I might have the recipe in my Weightwatchers cookbook. Anyway, after baklava, we decided it was time to go back to the hotel because the rain was becoming a little more steady. We high-tailed it back and warmed back up in our room. Herman said he'd take us to a good restaurant when he got off of work so now we're just waiting for him to get off of work.
We head back to Idaho tomorrow and we'll probably get back hom in the late afternoon/early evening time...just in time for me to wash what I took to Seattle and repack it for my trip to ATL on Wednesday. I have to get up really early on Wednesday morning at about 4:40am so I can catch my 7am flight. I'll get into town at about 3:22pm (et). Can't wait! Oh and like I said earlier in the post, I'll try and upload the pictures from this trip when we get home tomorrow evening. Til then, hope you have a great evening! :)
We woke up this morning about 8am (pt) and ate our free breakfast and then got ready for the day. We walked to the Space Needle, which was only about 1/3 of a mile away from where we were staying. It's really not as pretty as you would think. It was opened at the World's Fair in 1962 and it was originally painted in (get these color names): Astronaut white, Orbital olive, Galaxy gold, and Reentry red. However, a member of royalty (I forgot his name) said he didn't like the colors because it reminded him of a bridge he'd seen. So, the colors were just changed to gold and white. The elevator we rode up to the top in reminded me of that golden capsule elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the old school one with Gene Wilder--I LOVE THAT MOVIE)! The elevator shot up at a whopping 10 mph and then we were at the top of the world! Unfortunately, I didn't bring the camera cords to upload the pictures with so I'll add them when I get a chance once we get home, so stay tuned. Anyway, we got up to the top and we could see Mt. Rainier!!! I had always read in school about this infamous mountain but now I could actually see it! I was excited and it was just covered in all this snow! It looked so majestic. Kyle overheard a lady say that you can only see this mountain 1/3 of the year and so it was so nice to be able to see it this time. It was so windy and cold at the top of the Needle and it was kinda hard for me to be out there--it kinda made me dizzy to be out there at the very top while it was so windy. Whenever I'm that high up in the air, I always imagine that the wind is going to get so strong that it'll make me fall over or drop something from the top---even just writing about this makes me almost dizzy! There's a rotating restaurant in the Needle and I thought about possibly going there to eat, but it's probably just really overpriced food and who knows if it's even good! Oh well. We spent probably about 30 minutes up there and then decided to go back down to earth.
We went back to the hotel and we got into the car because one of Kyle's college buddies who graduated a couple of years ago is now working at Microsoft. We wanted to go visit him for a little bit. We toured the campus of Microsoft and went into the visitor center and the company store. After that, we ate lunch in one of the many cafeterias. The food was really good! I had a nice, big salad and a cup of fruit salad. The fruit was so fresh tasting and that's pretty rare for some cafeterias. Usually the grapes are really mushy and the pineapple is kinda dried up but noooo, not this fruit salad! We ate and visited awhile and then finally Herman (Kyle's friend) said he had to get back to work but not without a little more of a tour. We went driving around the campus and lo and behold! you know those little blue and green people that MSN messenger uses? There were 2 huge cardboard cut-outs of them displayed on the corner of one of the streets. Herman took a picture of Kyle and me posing with the two figures. After the driving tour, we dropped Herman back at his building and we headed back to the hotel.
We got out of the car and walked to the Pike Place Farmer's Market. It was so cool! One big farmer's market selling so many different things but not limited to: fresh veggies, fruit, fish, crab legs, crafts, tshirts, different types of ethnic foods (you could smell all sorts of spices floating around), coffee, and your token junk that you'd only buy in the heat of the moment and then end up throwing it away a year later or less. Because it's Seattle, we were there at the market for about 30 minutes and it started to drizzle/rain. We went into the original Starbuck's and ordered a drink. Then after the coffee, I convinced Kyle that we should buy a triangle of baklava and share it. It was heavenly! I loved every nibble I took! *sigh* I'm gonna have to try and make it some day. I think I might have the recipe in my Weightwatchers cookbook. Anyway, after baklava, we decided it was time to go back to the hotel because the rain was becoming a little more steady. We high-tailed it back and warmed back up in our room. Herman said he'd take us to a good restaurant when he got off of work so now we're just waiting for him to get off of work.
We head back to Idaho tomorrow and we'll probably get back hom in the late afternoon/early evening time...just in time for me to wash what I took to Seattle and repack it for my trip to ATL on Wednesday. I have to get up really early on Wednesday morning at about 4:40am so I can catch my 7am flight. I'll get into town at about 3:22pm (et). Can't wait! Oh and like I said earlier in the post, I'll try and upload the pictures from this trip when we get home tomorrow evening. Til then, hope you have a great evening! :)
